How to do a Spin to Airscrew Combo

Eventually we are going to run out of different manoeuvres and ways to manipulate our boat in one bounce, but we will never run out of different combos. Spin to Airscrew is one of the easiest ones to do (as long as you know how to airscrew) but here are a couple tips to make sure you land it clean, and get all your desired amplitude.

1) Get to the top of the feature: There are a few different ways you can do this, but essentially you are trying to slow your boat down in some way so that it drags you downstream (or higher up on the wave). You can lean downstream in a front or side surf digging your edge in or stopping your boat from planning on the entire hull. You can plant your paddle in the water to cause drag, or what I commonly do is carve to the flatter side of the wave (if the wave has a shoulder) and when you feel like your falling off, lean forward quickly and cut back into the middle.

2) Initiate your downward momentum: On green waves (such as high water mini bus) you need to create your downward speed at the top of the feature because half the time it is trying to kick you off the back. You can do this by very aggressively stomping your feet down on the boat (as if you were doing a bow smash) and at the same time, quickly leaning forward and reach as far out in front of you as possible with your paddle to get leverage.

3) Initiate the first 180oyour spin: The most common way (and most efficient)of initiating a spin is with a reverse sweep stroke on the side you would like to start spinning (in this case it’s a left blade). One trick I found on this step, is to slightly lean back as the spin is starting, to hold yourself at the top of the wave (the more you lean upstream the faster you will go).

*Remember, sweep strokes are strokes with your whole blade in the water at a horizontal angle to the water, to achieve maximum efficiency.

4) Load up the last 180o of your spin: This is the crux point for most people trying to combo out of their spins. By continuing to lean back as the boat moves past 180o, the boat starts to lift into the air almost like a “catwalk” or a “wheelie”, you can then (at about 220o) start quickly sitting up and moving towards a position where you can initiate your air screw when the boat starts to get close to about 300o.

5) Initiate your airscrew: To initiate most freestyle tricks you need to use the edges your kayak came with. We call this the “edge to edge transfer”, and is another crucial stage to this trick. For the take-off for a left airscrew (what I am demonstrating) we are going to start by using the front-right portion of our rail underneath our boat. At this point in the trick, you want to slam your feet as hard as you possibly can onto the water on the front-right portion of your kayak. The “SLAM” is even more important for the “spin to airscrew” then a normal “airscrew” so that you can ensure that you don’t do the trick rotating around the front of your kayak. Aka. Panam.

6) Stomp your airscrew: If you can’t airscrew yet, I recommend learning that first, it’s not like a flashback the way it’s easier to spin into a backstab then it is doing a normal one, this trick takes a little bit of timing. It doesn’t matter if you throw a “back deck roll airscrew” or a “paddle airscrew”, either/or works.